


sweet music, starry skies

by neverfadingrain



Category: Mob City
Genre: F/M, Insomnia, Jasmine has her shit together, M/M, Multi, Ned being emotionally incompetent, PTSD, Preseries, even if nobody else does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 14:37:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1608713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverfadingrain/pseuds/neverfadingrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe brings a lot of things home with him from the war—twitchy hands and a temper that flares more and more easily as the days pass, nightmares that wake both of them up in the middle of the night, and a newfound dedication to his badge, among others. </p>
<p>He also brings home a friend, a bright eyed little slip of a thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sweet music, starry skies

**Author's Note:**

> So I was trying to post this in time for Mob City Monday, but it just wasn't gonna happen. Sorry it's late, everybody! In this AU, Ned does not have any connections with Meyer/the mob back east. Instead, Joe brings him to LA. There's a possibility this could wind it's way around to being completely show-compliant, instead of only partially compliant, but I haven't thought that far ahead yet. 
> 
> In other news, everything is Kate's fault. The idea, the motivation to get it done, the editing, and the telling me to just post it already. All of it. Thank you, bb!

While Joe is gone, off fighting halfway around the world, Jasmine talks to a lot of people. Other women, mostly, wives and mothers and sisters who’ve seen their men come home from similar situations. The one thing that seems constant, the one thing Jasmine tries to prepare herself to deal with, is that men who go to war come back changed. Baggage, they call it. Men bring home baggage, and they can’t always leave it at the door.

Her neighbor, an older woman named Sarah who’s married to a former marine, says Joe will likely be jumpy, prone to snapping and startle easily at loud noises. Jasmine thinks that sounds a lot like Joe before he went off to war, loud and brash and quick to anger. Joe picked lots of fights, not all of them good for him, but Jasmine had never seen him lay a hand on someone who didn’t deserve it. Because of that, maybe, she expects that their life after the war, if there is such a thing for them, will be not too different from before.

Jasmine’s friends are right. Joe brings a lot of things home with him—twitchy hands and a temper that flares more and more easily as the days pass, nightmares that wake both of them up in the middle of the night, and a newfound dedication to his badge, among others.

He also brings home a friend, a bright eyed little slip of a thing. “This is Ned,” Joe says, two minutes after knocking on the door, once they manage to break apart long enough to speak. He’d called to make sure she was home when he got into town, so at least Jasmine had had time to tidy the place up a bit. She’s glad she put in the effort now, welcoming a stranger and her husband who might as well be into her space. It’s embarrassing enough having her first impression be kissing Joe breathless against the door. “He’s gonna stay with us for a few days, until he gets a place of his own.”

“I appreciate your hospitality,” Ned says, tipping his black hat at her. He falls silent, then, and doesn’t speak another word except for a brief murmur of thanks later on when she shows him to the guest room.

Jasmine, well. She’d been looking forward to celebrating Joe’s return, just them and a bottle of wine and their bed, but her mother raised her to be polite to guests and she’s got more manners than to turn a friend of Joe’s away. She makes tea for them all, and doesn’t ask the question that must be written all over her face. _Who is he, Joe, and what is he doing here?_

Later, after Ned’s disappeared into the guest room with the door shut tight behind him, Joe explains a bit. He talks in fits and spurts, a handful of words at a time, looking like each one costs him something dear. Jasmine doesn’t want to know what happened in Guadalcanal, to put that kind of look on Joe’s face. “Ned was part of my platoon,” Joe says, and he can’t quite meet her eyes. “A kid, really, just a kid who didn’t know what he signed up for. None of us did, though, not really. I saved his life a few times, now he thinks he owes me.”

“That’s all well and good, but why did you bring him home with you?” Jasmine asks.

Joe just shrugs. “He didn’t have anywhere else to go. I said I’d put him up for a while, ‘til he could get an apartment.”

Later still, when Jasmine wakes up in the middle of the night to Joe restlessly mumbling beside her and a slight frame leaning over them both, comprehension blooms in her sleep-hazy mind.

“Gunny,” Ned whispers, voice pitched soothingly low, hand on Joe’s broad shoulder. “Gunny, wake up. You’re safe. You’re back home, there’s nobody out there, wake up.”

Joe startles awake with a gasp like he’s drowning, rolls out of bed in one swift move and tackles Ned to the floor. Jasmine almost screams, she’s so startled, but Ned just relaxes under Joe’s body weight and lets her husband pin him to the carpet. He’s still talking, she realizes abruptly, still whispering soothing words with bright eyes and a worried look on his face.

When Joe comes out of it, comes back from whatever horrible place he’d been, he looks horrified. He recoils, stumbles backwards until he hits a wall and sinks down against it, hands shaking. Ned tosses a quick glance in Jasmine’s direction—checking on her, making sure she won’t scream, asking for her help, Jasmine doesn’t know—before crouching down next to Joe.

Jasmine takes careful note of Ned’s position and follows his lead; making herself small, unthreatening, not blocking Joe’s escape route if he should need it. She puts a gentle hand on Joe’s shoulder, trying to still her shaking fingers against his broad muscles.

Joe won’t meet her eyes, and when Jasmine glances over Ned is studiously focused on Joe. “Just me,” he says reassuringly, and Joe gives a broken-looking nod. “You didn’t hurt her, Joe. And better me than her anyways.”

Jasmine presses herself close, hugging her husband’s trembling body, and tries to figure out the best way to handle this.

\--

Over the course of the next few weeks, Jasmine picks up a few things. Joe shares details in pieces, half-started sentences that trail off into silence and glazed eyes. It always takes him a moment to come back, to remember that their living room isn’t the army barracks or the airstrip on a desolate island.

Ned is in and out of the apartment, looking for a place of his own, but when it’s just him and Jasmine in the apartment he’ll share a bit too. Fragments of stories about their platoon, about Joe, even a few about himself. Jasmine still doesn’t want to know how bad it was over there, not _really,_ but Ned fills in the blanks that she needs. To understand how to help Joe get better, if nothing else.

It doesn’t seem like Ned was affected at all, in comparison to Joe’s sudden instability. Jasmine thinks it’s because she didn’t know Ned before he went to war, and goes right on thinking that up until the first morning Joe goes to work at the police station and she stumbles upon Ned curled up and shaking on the bathroom floor.

She’s woken up to Joe and Ned having murmured conversations in the middle of the night more often than not over the past two weeks. By now, Jasmine knows how to handle the flashbacks, knows that it’s more harmful, more _dangerous_ , to jar Joe out of them. So she sits down next to Ned, puts her arm around him and lets him shake apart in the circle of her embrace. Ned doesn’t cry, but he makes muffled whimpering noises like some kind of wounded animal.

When he’s calmed down and aware again, tucking his hands under bent legs to hide the trembling, he won’t meet Jasmine’s eyes. That’s okay, she thinks. She doesn’t exactly know what to say either. But taking his mind off it is probably a good start. Jasmine puts a gentle hand on his shoulder and, when he takes a shaky breath and looks up, asks, “you wanna help me make lunch?”

“That sounds good,” Ned says weakly, and follows her up.

After that, he doesn’t hide so much from Jasmine. Ned’s flashbacks seem to happen mostly during the day—while Joe isn’t home to see them, she thinks but doesn’t say—while Joe’s creep into their bed in the middle of the night. Jasmine tries to be there for them both, to be a rock in their transition back to civilian life, but it’s harder than anyone ever told her it could be. One man is tough enough, she thinks, but nobody ever told her what to do with two.

\--

Ned moves out seven weeks after he appeared, trailing after Joe like a lost puppy. He’s lost the quiet air, thank goodness, though Jasmine can’t quite decide if she misses it or not. Now that he’s talking to her, Ned’s got a tongue on him at the best of times. Jasmine likes him, though, likes his friendship and his brilliant mind and how he’s been helping Joe.

They go out to the Clover Club to celebrate Ned getting his own place, he and Joe and Jasmine. It’s her night off and originally she hadn’t intended to go anywhere near Mickey Cohen and his ilk, but the Clover is a better place to celebrate than Bunny’s. Jasmine maybe drinks a little more than she ought to, but they took a cab over and Joe’s steadily outdrinking her so she doesn’t worry about it, just dances and has a good time with her boys.

After a couple hours Ned slips away for another round of drinks and doesn’t come back. Jasmine is too busy dancing with her husband to notice for a while, but eventually the alcohol starts clearing from her bloodstream and she remembers the outside world. Ned’s caught up in an intense conversation with Ben Siegel, of all people, and Jasmine can tell by the way he’s gesturing, whole body motions that look grand and ensure no one crowds him, that he’s having a good time. Siegel looks entertained, too, even if Rothman at his side isn’t so impressed.

Eventually, Ned breaks away and comes back to them. Joe hasn’t noticed, too caught up in his drinking and his thoughts--not that Jasmine has been helping, taking the opportunity for what it is and flirting heavily with him--but he smiles widely when Ned reappears with a round of drinks. Jasmine gives Ned a knowing look, and Ned pastes on an innocent face but she’s too well-versed in his expressions by now to buy it. “We’ll talk about it later, smart mouth,” she teases. “Tonight’s a celebration.”

“Damn right it is,” Joe cheers, and drains his glass.

Ned rolls his eyes at them, but when a waiter passes by with a tray full of drinks he takes one without protesting.

\--

Jasmine doesn’t know what woke her, Joe’s mumbling or the restless tossing and turning, but she’s been in this situation enough times to know what to do. She puts a gentle hand on Joe’s shoulder, making sure not to crowd him, and tries to emulate Ned’s tone of voice. Ned always knows how to wake Joe up gently, how to get him out of the nightmares, but sometimes Joe’s too deep in his own head. This is one of those times; Joe rolls over in a flash, pinning Jasmine beneath his bulk.

She’s seen him do this to Ned at least a dozen times, seen the way Ned goes pliant and trusting in his grasp, but she can’t force her body to do the same. Jasmine’s too tense, the strain showing through in her voice as she pleads with Joe. “Just wake up, baby, you’re home. You’re home and you’re safe and no one’s going to hurt you here, I promise. Joe, please…”

Something about her words must get through to him, because the wild look in Joe’s eyes fades and he recoils back, a torrent of apologies flooding from his lips, “oh god, Jasmine, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, oh god, what have I done, I’m so sorry!”

Jasmine sits up to reassure him, to calm him down and explain that he didn’t hurt her, not really, but Joe’s already gone. The bathroom door shuts with a solid sounding thunk, and she can hear the click of the lock, can picture Joe sliding down the wall to cradle his head in his hands and sob. Padding across the carpet, Jasmine pulls on her dressing gown and presses her ear to the door.

“Joe?” she calls softly. “Joe, come on, please. Just talk to me. You didn’t hurt me, baby, I’m fine. Open the door, Joe. Please?”

There’s no response, just a muffled hitch of Joe’s breathing.

Something in Jasmine’s heart breaks, and she dials a number into the phone before she can think twice.

“H’lo?” a low voice slurs, thick with sleep.

Jasmine forces herself to take a deep breath. Two panicked marines is an infinitely worse situation than just one. “Ned. It’s Joe, I need you to come over.”

“What happened?” Ned demands, sounding more alert now. “Is he alright--are _you_ alright?”

“We’re fine. He’s locked himself in the bathroom, and he won’t let me in,” Jasmine explains, eyeing the door worriedly. She can still hear Joe inside, crying and cursing himself.

There’s a clatter through the phone. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Ned promises, and though she doesn’t want to give up her lifeline to sanity Jasmine forces herself to say goodbye and hang up. She sinks to the floor on the other side of the bathroom, stares at her hands in her lap and listens to Joe breathe on the other side of the door.

An indeterminable amount of time passes before she hears a clatter in the hallway outside; someone running up the stairs with reckless haste. A key slides in the front door, shh-click, then it creaks as it opens. Jasmine can’t see much in the dark, but she’d recognize that silhouette anywhere. Besides, Ned’s had a key since he followed Joe home, and they haven’t bothered to get it back yet.

She must make a sound, shift her weight, _something_ , because Ned beelines for the bathroom and crouches down in front of her with a worried look on his face, eyes glinting in the near-darkness. “Are you alright?” he asks insistently, clasping her trembling hands between his own.

“I’m _fine_ , he didn’t hurt me,” Jasmine says. It feels like something she should say again, to Joe if nothing else, so she repeats it, raises her voice a little so Joe can hear her through the door. “He didn’t hurt me.”

Ned nods, brusque, stands and pounds on the door with a heavy fist. “Come on, Joe, open up. Everybody’s safe here, it’s just me. Open the door, Joe!”

After a long pause where Jasmine holds her breath, certain nothing’s going to happen, the doorknob turns. Joe’s crumpled in a ball on the bathroom rug, his eyes rimmed red and bloodshot, his shoulders hitching with every choked back sob. It feels like she blinks and then Ned’s in the bathroom too, curling around Joe’s larger frame and making shushing sounds in the back of his throat.

Slowly, like a flower unfurling, Joe relaxes into Ned’s embrace.

Jasmine almost doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want to interrupt the moment. But then Joe looks up, eyes searching for her, and she reaches over Ned’s shoulder to press nerveless fingers to the curve of Joe’s cheek. He leans into the touch like a cat, visibly relaxing.

Ned leans back against her too, as if making sure she stays close, and warmth blooms in Jasmine’s heart. Her boys, she thinks, and the word is oddly fitting.

\--

After a while, they move back to the bedroom, falling on the bed in a tangled mess of limbs and weak laughter. After longer still, Jasmine drifts off to sleep, surrounded by two bodies breathing in counterpoint. It’s strangely soothing.

When she wakes, Jasmine stares at the unfamiliar line of a lean back, silhouetted in the gold hues of an early morning sunrise, before realization comes to her. Both Ned and Joe are still asleep, the former tucked in between them like he belongs there. Jasmine drifts in and out of awareness, caught in that lazy morning mood where nothing and everything catches her attention.

An interminable amount of time later, Joe starts to shift and murmur restlessly, so unlike how he slept before the war. Jasmine starts to sit up, intent on waking him up gently. But Ned stirs, grumbling wordlessly and pressing his face deeper into the curve of Joe’s shoulder. It’s an unexpectedly sweet gesture, especially in comparison to how aloof Ned is with them during the day. Joe settles back down with a sigh, and both of their bodies go lax.

Jasmine holds her breath, not wanting to break the moment. When she’s sure that both have gone back to sleep, she slides out from under the covers and gets dressed silently. As she pads into the kitchen, the sounds of the building waking up filter into their apartment.

The stove starts with a hiss, kettle full and ready to start percolating, and Jasmine turns her attention to making breakfast. Pancakes sound like a suitable thank you for coming to the rescue last night, and she’s been meaning to use the last of the blueberries anyways.

She’s got half a bowl of batter left when Ned stumbles into the kitchen, bleary eyed and clearly only awake enough to follow the scent of the coffee. He presses an absent kiss to her cheek when she holds out a mug of the steaming brew, already made up the way he likes it, and it’s only when Jasmine stiffens in surprise that he realizes what he did. “Oh,” he says, kind of quiet and a little shamefaced. “Sorry.”

“That’s alright,” Jasmine says. And it is, isn’t it? They’re friends, after all. And Ned came when she called, when she didn’t know who else to turn to, and he stayed longer than anyone could reasonably be expected to. Pushing away thoughts of what something like that could easily mean, Jasmine gives him a smile, small but genuine, and flips a pancake over before it can burn.

Ned takes a long drink of coffee in response.

“Besides,” Jasmine continues casually. “It was kind of nice, waking up to something other than Joe’s nightmares.”

Ned hunches his shoulders and starts setting the table. “Joe’s got good reason for those.”

“I know.”

“All he needs is some time and a little understanding, and they’ll go away on their own,” the younger man insists.

Jasmine watches him move for a minute, takes in the trembling hands and bags under his eyes. “Who are you trying to convince, Ned?” she asks softly. “Me, or yourself?”

Ned doesn’t respond to anything she says after that.

\--

Ned leaves before Joe gets up—“Got to see a man about a loan,” he says, and Jasmine thinks back to pastel suits and a glittering smile, thinks she doesn’t want to know—but Joe still seems to realize that something’s off when he stumbles out into the kitchen. “The brat left in a hurry this morning. He say something to you?” he asks. His laugh sounds forced to Jasmine’s ears.

She shrugs. “What makes you think it was him?”

“Cause if it wasn’t him, it was me, and you said it wasn’t me.”

Jasmine sighs. She doesn’t want to lie to Joe, not with all the other things between them, but telling him what she knows feels like a sort of betrayal. (She isn’t sure when Ned became one of the people she thinks twice about betraying, but it isn’t a nice feeling.) “It wasn’t you,” she says at last, handing Joe a loaded plate. “Ned’s talking to Ben Siegel about a loan.”

“Three days on his own and the kid’s already making friends with the mob?” Joe scowls at nothing in particular, probably wishing Ned was around so he could talk some sense into him.

Jasmine swallows uncomfortably, leans back against the counter. “It’s our fault, you know.”

“How?”

“We took him to the Clover Club, remember?” Joe had gotten drunk that night, but not so drunk that he wouldn’t be able to remember most of dinner. “That’s where he met Ben; I didn’t like it but he’s a grown man and it’s not like he’s our responsibility, he can make his own choices.”

Something about her words seems to bring Joe up short, and it isn’t until she mentally replays the last sentence that she understands why. The thought of Ned being with them, in _that_ sense, not just hers or Joe’s but _theirs_ , brings a heady flush to her cheeks.

When Joe speaks next, his words come slowly and are carefully directed to his half-demolished plate. “Would you want him to be? Ours, I mean.”

Jasmine takes a deep breath. It feels like the moment for it, both of them finally coming to the real issue and the kitchen fraught with tension. “I would,” she says, just as carefully. “I really, really would.”

“Oh,” Joe breathes. He swallows heavily, takes a couple beats to steel himself before meeting her eyes. There’s something desperate in his gaze, searching, like he’s looking for her approval. “Me too.”

Jasmine nods. She’d had a feeling, watching Ned and Joe together these last few weeks. Ned’s crush was badly hidden, especially with the way he’d jumped to take care of Joe last night. Joe’s feelings were more complicated, more subtle, but since Joe came home she’s been witness to the same kind of awkward flirting that had comprised his interactions with _her_ before he’d gotten up the courage to ask her out properly. It hadn’t been hard to put together after that.

“Would he even say yes?” Joe wonders aloud, looking horribly guilty for even considering the thought. Jasmine can understand why, but she’s spent too long refusing to allow herself to think about it to go back now. A marriage is supposed to be enough for them, _should_ have been enough for them, but the war changed a lot of things. And maybe they’re moving kind of fast—she’s only known Ned for two months, after all—but they’d do more damage now ignoring it or pretending not to feel the same. Jasmine’s a practical woman; if bringing Ned into the equation is the best way to save their marriage, then she’s all for it.

So she allows herself to answer honestly. “He would. If you asked him, he would.”

Jasmine leaves her husband considering that in the kitchen and finishes getting ready for work. She can see that Joe needs to work through some things before he’ll be ready to talk more, and she’s perfectly okay with letting him have that time. It’s a groundbreaking revelation, after all.

\--

She intends to say something to Ned the next time he comes over for dinner, or stops by to check on Joe, but suddenly Ned is too busy to come visit them. He makes all manner of excuses, the most prominent being more meetings about his loans. Jasmine’s excited for him, because Ned had told her how much going to law school meant to him, but it feels a little like they’re being snubbed.

Joe shakes his head when she asks after Ned, looking bewildered, says he hasn’t talked to the other since the morning when they’d all woken up together. A sinking feeling fills Jasmine’s gut, and she starts to wonder.

The effects of Ned’s disappearance start to show after only a couple days. The ever-present bags under Joe’s eyes from lack of sleep get deeper; every time Jasmine wakes in the middle of the night, he’s oddly stiff next to her, as if he’s forcing himself to stay awake so she won’t have to calm him down on her own. Joe’s temper gets even shorter, until he never stops snapping at her and hardly ever shares stories from his day.

Jasmine’s at her wit’s end, trying to hold things together. This only proves her theory that they need Ned to keep the marriage together; she suspects it would’ve degraded a lot faster had Joe not offered Ned a place to stay in the first place. Sometimes—mostly when she’s alone and staring at pictures of them before Joe shipped out—Jasmine hates Ned for what he brought to them, what he offered so willingly and then took away. It’s clear by now that Ned’s avoiding them, intentionally, and she has no idea how to make that stop.

Finally, though, he makes an appearance at the Clover Club while she’s working. Ned doesn’t see her at first, but Jasmine notices him the second he comes through the door. He’s wearing a nicer suit than she’s seen on him before, and a truly horrendous tie. Jasmine hopes this isn’t a sign of a deeper affiliation with the mob, but she’s seen Ben Siegel’s idea of fashion sense. There’s only one man in L.A. who would give _that_ as a gift.

Ned’s looking around the club, probably trying to find either Mickey Cohen or one of his entourage, but Jasmine sidles up behind him before he can wriggle out of her grasp for _another_ three weeks. “Fancy seeing you here,” she says as she comes up behind him, and Ned visibly flinches.

“Jasmine,” he mumbles, breath quickening.

Guilt abruptly fills her; she hadn’t meant to startle him. “Come on, we can talk in Mr. Cohen’s office.” Tugging gently at his arm, Jasmine waves a hand to catch the attention of the club owner. “Going on my break,” she shouts to be heard above the crowd, and Mickey Cohen leers at the both of them.

“Good choice,” he tells Ned, grinning smugly, and nods at Jasmine. “Legs, you got fifteen minutes. Make ‘em count.”

Jasmine bites her tongue against a scathing reply and directs Ned into the office, shutting the door firmly behind them. When she turns around, Ned looks uncomfortable, fiddling with his tie like he can’t decide if he wants to take it off or straighten it. “Do they all talk to you like that?”

“Mickey’s an ape, you get used to it. But we’re not here to talk about him,” Jasmine says firmly, stepping closer so Ned’s forced to meet her eyes. “You’ve been avoiding us, smart mouth.”

Ned swallows. “I—”

“If it was just me, I’d understand. Guy loses interest in a girl, he moves on. It happens.” Jasmine hopes the contained fury in her tone conveys what her words don’t—that she may understand, but she doesn’t like it, and she isn’t in the practice of letting a man do that to her and walk away unscathed. “But it’s not just me, is it?”

“Jas,” Ned protests.

She shakes her head, a brittle movement. If she gives him an inch, Jasmine feels like she’ll start crying, and she hasn’t cried in public since George Lewis broke her heart in high school. “Joe hasn’t slept more than an hour at a time since you walked out on us. He’s too scared of the nightmares coming back, of hurting me and you not being there to catch him. He works all the time, and when he does come home, he won’t talk to me.”

“I—” Ned swallows. “I didn’t know.”

“No, you didn’t. Because you ran out on us. What’d you think, you’d get your own place and a new set of friends, there’d be no need for us anymore?”

Ned shakes his head, takes a step forward before he clearly thinks better of the idea. “No, Jasmine, _listen_. It wasn’t like that.”

“Then what was it like?” she demands. She’s tired of playing these games, tired and fed up and ready to smack some sense into Ned.

Except when she looks at him again, _really_ pays attention, Ned looks miserable. He’s pale and his skin is bruised around the eyes, like he’s been sleeping as little as Joe has the past few weeks. His hair is mussed rather than perfectly sleek, and he seems skinnier than she’s used to. Ned sighs, and all of a sudden he can’t meet her eyes. “I realized I wanted something I couldn’t have,” he admits to the floor.

Jasmine wants to roll her eyes. She doesn’t, but she really, really wants to _._ “Well maybe if you’d stuck around, you’d have known that you _can_ have it, that we want it too, and then we wouldn’t all be sleep deprived, now would we?”

“You—really?” Ned puts on a brave face, but she’s seen the cracks now—she knows what to look for, how to tell what he’s really feeling. Right now, he’s struggling not to hope.

“Yes, really.” Jasmine presses a kiss to his cheek, both reassurance that she means every word and a reminder of the last time they’d talked, before she opens the door and stalks back out into the club. She has work, after all, and as much as she wants to drag Ned home so he can’t wriggle away again it’s not possible. “I get off work at two; you should escort me home.”

“Yeah?”

Jasmine gives him a sly look. “You never know what kind of trouble can find a girl at night.”

As she walks away, back to her camera and the simpering fools that flock around it, Jasmine can practically feel Ned’s eyes on her back. It’s a good feeling.

\--

Ned’s leaning against the wall of the club when Jasmine steps out after work, cigarette in hand and several others littered around his feet. He exhales, smoke blowing out in lazy curls from pursed lips, and pushes off the wall to join her.

Jasmine feels the smile blooming over her face. When Ned had left halfway through the evening, she’d hoped he hadn’t gotten cold feet after all. “I didn’t know if you would be here.”

“Well, I couldn’t let a beautiful girl walk home alone, now could I?” He seems to have recovered well from the talk in the office; Jasmine’s glad, because as nice as it was making Ned see sense, she prefers his usual cocky attitude. Ned raises his arm to flag down a cab, and when one pulls to a stop at the curb in front of them he opens the door for her first. “Plus, I got this friend, think he’d be real steamed if I let anything happen to you.”

“How sweet of you,” Jasmine says, settling herself on the seat. Ned shuts the door after her and strides briskly to get in the other side while she gives the cabbie the address. A tense silence falls between them after that, full of nerves and anticipation. The drive is thankfully short; without the usual midday traffic, it’s ten minutes back to her apartment.

Ned insists on paying the cab fare, then stuffs his hands in his pockets and trails after her up the stairs of her building. The lights are on, Jasmine can see from the street, and she feels a flash of relief that they won’t have to wait any longer to settle everything.

When she unlocks the door, letting it swing wide and gently closing it after Ned, Jasmine sees Joe. He’s barefoot and sitting at the table in his undershirt, a half-full glass of scotch in front of him, and he looks like he’s had a hell of a day. Of course, that could also be the exhaustion talking, she thinks—but no, on closer inspection there’s a bruise standing out on his face in livid colors, dried blood on the swell of his cheekbone where whatever hit him broke the skin.

“Joe,” Jasmine sighs.

He starts, clearly not having heard them come in, and reflexes have him reaching for a weapon before he processes who’s in front of him. “Oh god,” he says, when he comes back to reality. The glass tumbles out of his hand and shatters on the floor, sending glass and drops of alcohol everywhere. “Jasmine.”

“It’s just us,” she says gently, shooting Ned a warning look as the younger makes a vaguely distressed noise. “You’re alright, you’re home and you’re _safe_.”

“Us?” Joe asks. He’s staring at the glass fragments scattered around his feet, and there’s a dazed look in his eyes.

Jasmine nods, steps closer and waves Ned into the light. “Yeah, Joe. Look who I found at work tonight.”

Joe looks up slowly, gaze skittering across the apartment before he notices Ned. He takes an automatic step forward, and Jasmine has to stop him before he keeps going and cuts his feet up. When she looks over her shoulder, Ned looks just as guilty as he had earlier. The only difference is that Joe looks equally guilty, instead of angry at Ned for running out on them. “Hey, kid,” Joe says quietly. “Haven’t heard from you in a while, thought I might be fishing your body outta the gutter one of these days.”

“Naw, Gunny.” Ned pulls another cigarette out of his case, hands one to Joe before lighting them both with a match from his pocket. “I’m too smart to end up in the gutter.”

Jasmine maneuvers Joe back into his chair before she starts sweeping the broken glass into a pile. “You say that, but who was it avoiding us for weeks cause he didn’t want to face what was happening?”

The men abruptly sober. “Jasmine,” Joe says tightly, taking a long drag of his cigarette. Ned shifts his weight uneasily. He looks about five seconds from running right back out the door, and that’s the last thing Jasmine can handle tonight.

“No.” She straightens, pointing with the broom handle for emphasis. “We’re been running from this, but we’re not anymore. You haven’t slept in _days,_ Joe. I can’t sleep because I’m worrying about you. And if Ned doesn’t feel the same, then where’s he been?”

Ned flushes under both of their gazes, stumbling over his words slightly. “I—Joe, you know I’d never—I didn’t want to come between you.”

“But you aren’t coming between us,” Jasmine says gently. She sets the broom aside, stepping over to press a kiss to Joe’s mouth. It’s relaxed and familiar, chaste with just a little bit of heat and the promise of more to come. When she pulls away, Joe’s staring up at her with so much love on his face that her heart hurts. Jasmine steps over to Ned’s side of the table, and when Joe’s gaze flicks over his expression doesn’t change. That’s what seals it for her, what gives her enough courage to kiss Ned next.

Ned’s mouth is unfamiliar under hers; he tastes like cigarette ash and the expensive scotch he’d been drinking at the Clover Club, and when she bites gently at his bottom lip he opens up with a muted gasp. Jasmine grins into the kiss, steps into the v of Ned’s thighs and tangles a hand in the messy strands of his hair. This kiss is hotter, filled with anticipation and that thrill of getting away with something risky. But it’s also sweet, reassuring. Ned kisses back like a drowning man, running his hands restlessly over the back of her dress.

When she pulls back, he looks artfully debauched. Ned’s hair is mussed and his mouth is slightly swollen, pupils blown black with desire. Jasmine looks over at Joe, to see how he’s taking this new development, but she needn’t have worried. Joe seems just as hopelessly turned on as Ned looks and Jasmine feels.

She urges Ned up, out of the chair and into Joe’s lap, with slightly shaking hands. They move slowly, slightly hesitantly, still feeling each other out, until Ned swallows and leans down to press his lips gently to Joe’s. Then Joe surges up, hands coming up to rest on Ned’s hip and back, holding them close together as Joe deepens the kiss. It turns her on more than Jasmine had expected, watching them together, but strangely enough she doesn’t feel left out. She’s had her turn, and if this relationship is going to develop the way she wants then Joe and Ned need to have their moment to work things out.

After a few minutes of watching tongues sliding slickly together and hearing muffled groans, however, Jasmine thinks she might have to step in after all. “You know,” she murmurs, pressing herself along Ned’s back and nibbling on his ear, squeezing Joe’s bicep to ensure his attention. “We’ve got a bedroom, with a really nice bed. It’d be a shame not to use it.”

\--

Jasmine wakes to murmured words and the rasp of sheets sliding against bare skin. “Mmm,” she hums, stretching and savoring the ache in her muscles. When her eyes flutter open, it’s to the sight of Ned’s bare body sliding out of bed and Joe’s gaze flicking between them both. “Where are you going?” she asks, feeling warm and lazy and not particularly concerned.

But Ned looks shifty, rummaging around on the floor for his clothes and unable to meet her eyes. “Uh,” he says eloquently. “Home?”

 “This is your home,” Jasmine says levelly. “I know we helped you find that apartment, that we said you could only stay until you got a place of your own, but that was before. You don’t have to sneak out on us, Ned. In fact, I’d be hurt if you did.”

Ned flushes, but his hunt for clothing doesn’t stop. In fact, he’s more hurried now, buttoning up Joe’s shirt haphazardly and not caring that it’s huge on him. “I’m not sneaking out,” he argues. “You’re awake, Joe’s awake. You both know I’m leaving.”

“I know you’re leaving, what I don’t know is why,” Joe comments. He glances over at Jasmine for reassurance, and Jasmine reaches out automatically, tangles her fingers with Joe’s and reaches the other hand out to Ned.

“Come back to bed with us,” she says.

Ned takes a deep breath. “I can’t--I can’t do this. Not if you’re not serious about this being more than one night.”

“I’m serious. I’ve been serious the whole time. Joe, what do you think?” Jasmine asks.

Joe gives a roguish grin. He leans up to kiss Ned, and though it starts off innocent it doesn’t stay that way. “I think I’ve got enough time before work to convince you that you don’t have to go anywhere, marine.”

Ned pulls away at last, taking a few deep lungfuls of air before he lets Joe’s shirt drop back to the ground. His hand is slick with sweat when he clasps Jasmine’s, but he climbs back into bed without any more hesitation.


End file.
